


i'm sorry, but i'm just thinking of the right words to say

by weatheredlaw



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, M/M, Non-Graphic Violence, Prostitution
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-05
Updated: 2012-07-05
Packaged: 2017-11-09 05:19:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/451780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weatheredlaw/pseuds/weatheredlaw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Yugi grows up violently, and alone, and finds the puzzle on the eve of his first night of college.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i'm sorry, but i'm just thinking of the right words to say

**Author's Note:**

> So I wrote this like two months ago I think, and I forgot that I'd actually finished it. Mostly because I couldn't believe that I'd sat down and written this because it's sort of frantic and misplaced and it might not read too clearly, but I didn't really intend for it to, I guess. It's all over the place because that's sort of how this Yugi is. I wanted to explore a Yugi who grew up very differently, but still wanted that friendship and those connections so desperately that it didn't _matter_ how things had gone for him in high school -- that would still be the wish he made, because it would still be the one thing he wanted above everything else. Basically, Yugi is a punk, but he wants friends still. And this is how that happens. So there you go. Enjoy.

"What is it you want most in this world?" The spirit levels his gaze with Yugi, takes in the ragged, bruised boy and settles in midair, deems him worthy, and smiles. Yugi's face splits into a grin and it might be true happiness or it might be insanity -- the spirit doesn't know.

"Friends, I guess." And if that's it -- because loneliness is something the spirit understands more than anything -- then he'll do it. He'll do that for this broken boy.

"We'll see what we can do."

 

 

Yugi is six and his left arm is broken.

"I don't _need_ you--" He is screaming and his mother is trying to wrestle him into the car and she can _hear_ the bones in his body crackling under her hands and she doesn't want to hurt her child--

 

 

"So that's twenty bucks," he says, setting his hand down and grinning over the bowl of loose change and cash that has piled up in front of them. Yugi always wins. Yugi always wins.

 _Yugi always wins_ \-- the word on the street is he's freakishly good at every game he gets his hands on. That you'd do better trying to kill him than trying to outplay him. That someone has probably already tried. Someone _has_ tried. 

 

 

She can hear the bones in his body crackling under her hands and she doesn't want to hurt her child, but Yugi lashes out and she's bleeding now and _she cannot take this anymore._

Her father makes her stay in the house. 

When they come back, she is gone. 

Yugi doesn't cry.

 

 

Yugi Muto doesn't cry. 

Don't ever fucking tell Yugi Muto you've seen him crying.

Don't ever make Yugi Muto cry.

Don't ever tell him you're going to make him cry. 

Don't ever give Yugi Muto a reason to make you bleed.

 

 

"Do you fight a lot?" The spirit is watching Yugi bandage his hands, blood still in the sink. There's dirt and blood caked on his nose. 

"Sometimes."

"That won't make you friends."

"What do you know?"

 

 

Yugi learned to play Duel Monsters when he was eight, when the game was new and no one was playing it except for dorks and punks like him. His grandfather had taught him the basics, because people had been playing it professionally for years now, but kids just didn't seem to get into it -- and then Yugi picked up a deck and he was _obsessed_. He couldn't stop thinking about it, couldn't stop talking about it, couldn't stop touching the cards he'd collected and won and stolen -- because sometimes there was something he wanted and he couldn't get.

He won his Dark Magician from a thirty year old _wastrel_ in the middle of the night when he was twelve and his grandfather was in the hospital and when people had started asking about where his mother was, where his father had gone, if anyone was home. He said his brother was in the cafeteria and wandered until the sun came up. 

To be fair, the man had challenged _him_ , but only after Yugi had climbed the fire escape to watch from above and started being really fucking obscene and kicking shit onto the players. He took a punch to the gut and the other guy's Dark Magician card and took off in the night. And if anyone asked, he won fair and square. And if anyone asked, Yugi didn't know he'd just beaten a six-time champion and a multi-millionaire player and the creator of some of the most famous magic cards in the games. He didn't know that he'd caught him on the day his wife left him and took everything.

Yugi was just a punk who played a good hand and won a good card.

And that's it.

 

 

"What should I call you?" Yugi asks. It's the first time he can feel the weight of the spirit, the strangeness of his skin and the metallic scent of death and loneliness that has settled in his soul room. The spirit watches Yugi drag his hands over rotten stones and write his name in the dust. 

"Yami." 

"Stupid name."

"You asked."

Yugi tries it out a few times, then asks him if he has a real cock or a ghost cock because it's been a while since he's had one in his mouth and--

 

 

Yugi is not having sex for cash. He plays games for cash, and anyone who says otherwise will not have ears in the morning, if they are lucky. 

 

 

"Is that what you think this is?" Yugi looks at Joey and there's still cum on his tongue and Joey's just looking really fucking confused because he thought he was getting his cock sucked for shits and giggles but maybe someone had mentioned that this punk would do a little more for some cash so that's probably why there was a twenty in his back pocket and it wasn't supposed to fall out it really fucking wasn't.

"Fuck you," Yugi says, spitting and knocking Joey's knees out from under him. "I don't--"

"Someone said you did."

"I duel for cash. Fuck you."

"Like...like cards? You play?"

 

 

"That's inappropriate," Yami says, but there's flesh enough between them and Yugi is hungry and he's pretty _fuck_ he is pretty. 

"Said the dude living in my body."

 

 

Yugi's first kiss is Teá, and it's a good kiss, it isn't bad. Later on, he'll probably call it his best, but she certainly won't. Teá's a nice girl and they went to elementary school together, but she knows that Yugi is fucked and that his bones all crack because they've been shattered so many times and she likes to think it's a song or something. She bends his wrist back and forth when they're done and asks him if he's ever gone down on a girl.

It's only Yugi's first time. Teá's been at this a few months.

He hasn't, but he will and he does and she comes so hard against his mouth, Yugi swears he can taste her for days. 

He is sixteen. And she is his only friend.

If that.

 

 

Yami comes with a shout, comes and it's not what he thought it was going to be and it's not as awful as he had imagined it because Yugi is good and Yugi is _really good_ and Yugi has this look on his face, like he isn't sure what just happened.

"That was weird," Yugi says. Yami laughs and makes a grab for Yugi's belt. "Not now."

 

 

Tristan sits next to him in English. They were in homeroom together. He might have been the one who told Joey that Yugi would do him for cash, but only because there was a joke about it senior year of high school. And maybe Tristan was kidding and maybe Duke was lying about it, but he fesses up mid-semester and he and Yugi sort of become friends. It works out.

 

 

"Yeah, Yugi says. I play."

"I'll give you this twenty if you can beat me," Joey says.

Yugi beats him and sucks him off again. 

Joey gets to keep the twenty.

"Let's just be friends," Yugi suggests. Joey thinks it's a good plan.

 

 

"This is Teá," he says. Joey salutes and Tristan hands her a beer. 

 

 

When Yugi comes in the soul room, he wakes up and his sheets are a mess and there's no one around. He isn't sure if he was shouting. He's always quiet when Yami sucks him off -- he only does it when Yugi's angry, when he's feeling something hot and poisonous bubble up and suddenly Yami's hands are on either side of his face and yeah it doesn't really matter anymore when he's getting off in another fucking dimension because isn't that what this is, isn't this some separate plane of reality --

"It is what you want it to be," Yami says cryptically.

"Shut up."

 

 

"You need to stop," Solomon says, washing the blood off Yugi's knuckles.

"They started it."

"And you're always the one who finishes it. You're small, Yugi, you can't--"

"I'm _fine_." Yugi pulls his hands away and blood splashes onto the walls and his grandfather's shirt. "I can do what I want."

_I can do anything._

 

 

"I can do that," Yugi says before Teá sets the shot glasses on the table for him. He takes them both, peppery tequila burning all the way down his throat before he stumbles off to the balcony and ignores the shadowy apparition of his 3000 year old fuck buddy.

"You're going to be sick."

"Probably."

"But you have friends now."

"Whaddya know?" But Yugi's tone is light and he smiles for the first time in a while. Yami's hands ghost over the scars peppering Yugi's knuckles. He cups his chin.

"Will you help me?"

 

 

In his own soul room, Yugi can feel the pulse of his own body. It is red and rich and sweet. 

 

 

"What is it you want most in this world?"

 

 

 _I want to be safe,_ Yugi doesn't say. _I want to say I'm sorry. I want my mother back. I want to know where my father went. I want to feel and not hurt. I want someone I don't know to smile at me. I want to be strong. I want to be brave. I want to be proud of what I've done._

"Friends, I guess."

 

 

"Will you help me?"

Yugi reaches into his soul room and feels his pulse. He feels Yami's. He touches them together. Inside, a lamp breaks. 

 

 

Yugi sees Tristan in the parking lot, head thrown back as Duke goes down on him, probably their first time. Teá is yelling at Joey because that's her mother's lamp, _fuck you_ and Joey might have kissed her at some point or another, because they are suddenly very quiet.

 

 

Yugi reaches into his soul room and feels his pulse. He feels Yami's. He touches them together. Inside, something is born.

 

 

"Yes," he murmurs. "Of course."


End file.
